Friday, October 15, 2010

Just Say No...

...to Terry Curry, apparently.

Around 2:45 in the video is where Curry launches into a litany of whiny Brady Bunch gun-grabber talking points, from variants on the "easy availability of guns" and "Indiana's loose gun laws" memes to the old canards about "assault weapons" and gun show "loopholes".

Remember, kids! "Loophole" is just a weasel word for "Legal activity I disagree with"!

Sorry, Curry, you just firmly and finally lost any chance at my vote. Now I have to decide between the guy with the very creepy ad campaign or my perennial favorite candidate, Ms. None Of The Above.

This is a NASTY political cycle, and all the gloves are coming off. But if the choice is between an Anti-Gunner who'll come after YOU if he has the chance, and some guy who'll leave you alone, put on a Gas Mask before you enter the Voting Booth and invoke the Heinlein Rule: "...There may not be someone you want to vote FOR, but they'll always be someone to vote AGAINST".

More of the 'why vote, boycott the entire election? They don't listen' - the one big issue here in Washington State is underage drinking, and the deaths it causes - so the state wants to keep their monopoly on liquor and charge a fifty-one percent markup - before taxees, to protect the youth... sound like something you may have heard about other reasons to SAVE the Children?

Curry starts talking about convicted felons. He may or may not switch topics, and worry about whether good citizens should be able to get guns. He might believe his concern is to restrict guns that end up in criminal hands, and just not understand the issues.

The 2nd Amendment was not written to permit self defense, nor hunting and recreational shooting. Those are well beyond the purview of a Congress and government set to "regulate commerce between the states." What the 2nd Amendment assures, and Curry overlooks, is the need for an armed populace to repel - or at need overthrow - a government that sets aside rule by laws, that exercises a tyrannical rule. Restricting firearm usage - even the "dreaded" common semi-automatic weapon - opens the doors to abusive governments. According to FBI reports, states that enacted and implemented concealed carry laws recently have each seen drops in all violent crimes. Drops in crime rates is one of the risks that Curry invites, with more stringent hoops to jump through.

At least WA still has a part time legislature. Seems to my jaundiced eye that the worst nanny state hellholes are the ones with full time legislatures, so the elected slugs get to play all year long looking for stuff to fix.

Of course, WA is striving mightily towards busybody nincompoopery fairly well, despite the handicap of only a limited time each year to meddle.

My solution is a lottery. Each parliamentary year a representative is chosen to be stoned to death on the capitol steps. Chances of selection will increase every additional term you serve, i.e., the first term your name goes in one time, second term your name goes in twice.

Another concept I mull is that any legislator who proposes dispossessing a citizen, either through taxes or user fees or eminent domain is immediately executed. Then the measure is debated and voted. So it will still be possible to hike taxes, but anyone wanting to do it will have to balance his expected public benefit against his own death.